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How Cristobal Balenciaga Became King of the Paris Fashion Scene (part one)
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LaToya Allen
October 12, 2024
Hey team,
LaToya here! Welcome back to The Strategy Files, the newsletter where I study the most successful people in, art, music, fashion, and culture. You apply it to your startup, agency, or side hustle. It’s a team effort!
Today’s lessons come from a man who was incredibly bold, strategic, ambitious and focused - fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga. Shout out to Modupe, who writes The Fashion Operator, for the idea.
Today’s Strategies:
Learn through apprenticeships
Luck + Hard Work === Success
If you’re in the right location for your goals, be a sponge. If you’re not, relocate.
Build authentic relationships with people who can positively impact your business
Paris had been the fashion capital of the world for 300 years when Cristobal Balenciaga arrived in 1936. The city was ripe with talent; Christian Dior worked as a fashion illustrator, selling sketches to French Magazines. Elsa Schiaparelli collaborated with Salvador Dali; the collaboration helped land her designs on the cover of British Vogue. Coco Chanel was so in demand that she was offered a million-dollar deal to dress Hollywood movie stars.
Cristobal was so ahead of the existing talent pool that Dior famously called him “The Master of Us All”. But how did he do it? How did he move from a smaller market and dominate the biggest market in his field?
To understand how he became King of the Paris fashion scene, we first have to understand the environment he was raised in.
In 1887, eight years before Cristobal was born, Queen Maria Cristina of Spain decided San Sebastian would become “the official summer home of the Spanish Court.” The town needed to provide food, art, and entertainment to some of Spain's wealthiest, most well-connected citizens. This decision transformed the culture of San Sebastian and its neighboring villages. Eight years later, Cristobal was born in one of those neighboring villages.
His first step towards greatness was landing an unofficial apprenticeship with his mother, a talented dressmaker with a roster of high-profile clients. One of those clients was from one of the oldest aristocratic houses in Spain. When he was twelve, the lady of the house arranged an apprenticeship between Cristobal and a tailor in San Sebastian.
Cristobal landed a third apprenticeship at a more stylish, more fashionable shop called New England. Then came a position at a department store where Queen Maria Christina often shopped. In 1913, he was sent to Paris as a buyer; someone who was responsible for picking out the clothing that stores import and sell.
In 1918, at 23, Cristobal learned enough from all these experiences to open his first shop.
Til next,
LaToya
P.s. I’m curious to know - when you were a kid, did you know what you wanted to be building? Did you have the clarity and focus that Cristobal had when he was a kid? Why or why not?